Red Heat is Ocean's gaming interpretation of the lesser-known Arnie Schwarzenegger movie of the same name, co-starring James Belushi. One superficially mirrors the other in that we steer a heavyset, stilted Arnie sprite throughout the same locations seen on the silver screen en route to tracking down Georgian drug kingpin, Viktor Rostavili. Initially, he's rumbled in Russia, hence the movie title. Nevertheless, in the blink of an eye, he flees to America where the rest of the movie takes place because you can't have an A-list Hollywood blockbuster set entirely over there in Foreignland. People would think it was an intelligent arthouse film and stay away in droves. I'll leave you to catch the highlights on YouTube rather than explaining any more. I can wait for two minutes. ;)
Ocean's multi-system conversion is sadly amongst the worst of their entire library. I expect you'll already be familiar with it for the wrong reasons. It's notorious for funnelling all the 'action' into a tiny, widescreen strip, barely affording sufficient space to display Arnie and his drug-dealing perpetrator prey from the waist up. This would have been the perfect opportunity to execute an appropriate, nudity-censoring gag during the sauna level, except all the patrons including Captain Ivan Danko (Arnie) are wearing modesty towels regardless, and the same screen-obliterating perspective is used throughout in any case. Even more jarring is Belushi's appearance as Chicago police detective, Art Ridzik. He looks the part, granted, right up until the jaw-dropping moment when he begins to speak. Then that's the only part of his anatomy that's animated, his jaw, seemingly borrowed from a vintage ventriloquist's dummy. Ocean turned James Belushi into a wooden marionette for a lark! And it is as long as you didn't pay money for the privilege!
0 comments:
Post a Comment